


Adventure VII (Reboot)

by elfin



Category: Sapphire and Steel
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-29
Updated: 2016-10-29
Packaged: 2018-08-27 18:25:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8411845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elfin/pseuds/elfin
Summary: Sapphire and Steel are sent to seal a rip in reality in Baker Street, London





	

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written many years ago.

**EPISODE ONE**

The short man takes two steps forward and lays his palm flat against the wall. He’s only just arrived.

“It’s a house.” A statement of fact, one which might be obvious, but his companion simply raises an eyebrow, acknowledging his assessment. She steps forward to stand beside him, facing the wall, the hem of her blue dress brushing the flock wallpaper. She’s careful not to touch him as she lets her eyes lose focus. She looks inside instead of out.

"It’s an image.” There is the slightest note of surprise in her voice.

The man turns, stares at her. “It can’t be. We’re standing in it.”

“Nevertheless. It’s only partly here.” She met the steely gaze. “We’re not completely inside it.”

 

Silver watches the ritual with interest. “Is this usual, or is it a show for my benefit?”

Hard grey eyes and soft blue ones send shivers equally down his spine and he feels a brief touch ghost over his mind making him smile.

The two operators turn from him in unison, back to the wall, which to him doesn’t really warrant further investigation.

 

Sapphire strokes her fingertips over the wallpaper, being gentle as if it might turn to ash at any moment under her touch. Do you feel it?  
_  
Yes._

_And?_

_I don’t like it._  
  
She glances at her partner. His honesty is far from trustworthy but she can sense he’s being truthful here.  
_  
Why not?_ She keeps her mind-voice soft, a personal question as much as a professional query. He doesn't answer, and his thoughts are hidden from her. _Steel?_

He ignores the question and she isn’t surprised or insulted. He’s unsettled, and he isn’t comfortable sharing his feelings, such as they are. She watches him as he turns away, starting up the narrow, steep staircase which leads from the hall they are standing in up to the first floor. At least, that’s where it should lead.

“What year is it?” he calls back.

“Late 1900s. No. Wait. Something's not quite right.”

She follows him up, their footsteps in perfect sync on the bare wooden board. The stairs turned back on themselves before emerging on to a small landing. “Sapphire?” 

_What’s wrong?_

There are two doors leading off the landing, one in front of them and the other on their left, and there is another staircase continuing upwards. She stops close to him. Personal space has never been an issue for them, not one of the few human traits they adopt when they’re on earth, in this form. It draws odd looks from the humans they interact with.

_We’re caught between two time periods: 1892 and 1986. We’re in both at the same time and yet… not. As if the image of the past has been overlaid on top of the future._

 

“I wish you’d both stop doing that.”

Silver’s complaint comes as he stops halfway up the stairs behind them. If they want him to hear he will, but they’re seeing to themselves. They’re closer than on previous occasions he’s worked with them. He doesn’t know why and neither should he care. It’s a cause of irritation that he does.

He wonders to himself, is this jealousy?

Steel speaks without turning. “Sorry.” He reaches for the knob of the door in front of them and pushes it open, stepping inside.

Sapphire follows, and a moment later Silver hears her intake of breath. He takes the rest of the stairs two at a time and peers over her shoulder.

“What?” All he sees is a room.

Two chairs are facing one another over a small, round table in front of a burning log fire. In one corner, a workbench laden with measuring flasks, Bunsen burners and empty test tubes. There’s a faint whiff of chemicals in the air, masked by burnt wood. Against the bench stands a violin case. On the mantelpiece there are letters, papers, match boxes. Loaded bookshelves line the far wall, either side of two tall windows covered by heavy drapes.

The décor fitted with a period circa late 1900s. Nothing overtly shocking, but Sapphire obviously has a different point of view.

 

_What’s wrong?_

_Steel… they’re trapped…._

_Who are?_

_I don’t know… two of them… two men. They were here…_

_Where are they now?_

_I don’t know…._

He envies them this, the partnership and if not exactly friendship than at leat the company they have in one another. Silver lifts his hand, reaching for her shoulder, forgetting.Steel’s reaction is lightening fast, snagging Silver’s wrist, catching it before he can touch her. “No.”

Unaware of the aborted touch, she continues. _They’re in pain, Steel._

_What kind of pain?_

_I don’t know._

Blinking, she turns her head to look at him. “They’re not real. They were never here.”

Steel lets go of Silver’s wrist, releasing it back to him. He rubs the reddened skin surreptitiously. Steel’s grip was vice-like, but the shallow discomfort was worth it for the brief warmth. Steel sweeps passed him, returning to the landing.

 

Steel doesn’t understand what Sapphire’s telling him. She has a habit of speaking in riddles only she understands. Which isn’t fair. She isn’t doing it on purpose. It’s just the way she translates thoughts into words. He reaches for the knob to open the second door. The moment his fingers come into contact with the metal, he freezes.

He can hear whispers. Not his companions behind him. These are coming from a distance, but he's unable to pinpoint the origin. He isn’t sure whether they’re real or only in his imagination. There’s something wrong.

A glance back at Sapphire and Silver tells him unequivocally that they’ve heard nothing out of the ordinary, but he asks anyway.

“Did you hear that?”

Sapphire responds first, broadcasting for them both to hear. _Hear what?_

_Whispers._

_Saying?_

_I don’t know._ Aware he's being as helpful as he considered Sapphire only moments ago, he tries harder. “Male voices. Only… I might have imagined them.”

“What makes you think that?”

He hesitates, struggling to find the words. “The sound… feels wrong.” He hopes his expression is apologetic, or what he hopes is apologetic. He beckons her to his side with just a look and glances at the doorknob. She understands, and as he touches it again, she rests her fingers on the back of his hand, along the fine human bones. This way she will hear what he hears, but this time there’s nothing but silence. The absence of sound.

Reaching for it once again he touched it as her fingers stroked over his own, resting between them on the metal.

But this time there was nothing. Silence.

“Just a doorknob,” she tells him with a quick smile. But he won’t be placated.

“You don’t believe me.” It comes out sharper than he intended. “Sorry.” With a quirk of his head, he pushes open the door and looks inside. It’s a bedroom, about half the size of the living room. Its contents are simple, functional: a metal bed frame with a narrow mattress and one pillow, a narrow dresser with a mirror and some personal effects – comb, pill box, some sort of slipper next to which lies a syringe.

A small fireplace next to the dresser is unlit. A window looks out but it's too dark to see what’s outside. Nervous, not sure why, Steel steps across the threshold.

 

The voices are suddenly no longer whispers, they’re screams. His hands fly to cover his ears but it doesn't help: the sounds are inside his head, not out.

His mind is on fire. The flaring pain tears a scream of his own from the human body he’s forced his form into. He’s trapped, the smooth surfaces and sharp edges of his soul scolded by the agony.

He knows nothing of the swift rescue until he's out on the landing again, shaking and panting. His hands are being drawn down from his head, finger nails pried from his borrowed flesh. Concerned blue eyes question him silently. There’s no mental prying. Maybe she doesn’t want to touch what might have been wounded. Maybe she doesn’t want to experience the same thing he’s just done.

“Steel?” He looks at her, thankful, but unable to speak.

_Steel?_

He cries out again as pain lances across the raw places in his mind, and manages to grind one word out through his teeth.

“Don’t.”

“Sorry. Come and sit down.” She leads him through into the other room and sits him in one of the two chairs in front of the fire. Crouching in front of him she rests her hands on his knees and watches his face carefully. He closes his eyes, retreating for a moment. It’s as close to escape from his fleshy prison as he’s able to get without leaving.

After a time, she asks, “What happened?”

He takes a deep breath even though he doesn’t need to, opens his eyes. “I don’t know. I could feel them screaming, as if they were in that room but not. Something… linked me to them.”

“Who are they?”

He looks around, and now they’ve been in his head he knows this place. “They live here.”

“In 1889 or 1986”

“Both. Neither.”

She doesn’t understand but neither does she pressure him to explain. “Where are they?”

“They’re everywhere. And nowhere. They don’t exist.”

 

Silver turns away from the two operators and for want of anything better to do, he heads up the second flight of stairs.

Just one set this time. The landing is just as small, and again there are two doors off it, one in front of him and one along to his right.

The one in front is a bathroom. Toilet, sink and a harsh metal tub. He remembers reading somewhere about outside privies and wonders if an inside toilet is in keeping with the time. With the past.

Still pondering, he walks along the bare floorboards to the second door and pushes it open.

A second bedroom, much like the first except… there are books, journals, hand-written, everywhere: covering much of the bed, the dresser, the floor. All of them open.

Cautiously stepping inside, he reaches to pick up the one closest to hand, intending to read the writing made in pencil. But as his fingers grip the paper, it crumbles through them, turning to dust before his eyes, scattering on the air.

“How very odd….”

Fascinated, he touches the end of the bed, wrapping long fingers around the metal frame. It's cold and remains in tact. It's real.

Meaning… the books aren't?

Crouching down next to the bed he reads what’s on an open page of one of the journals, being careful not to touch.

 

_‘A difficult case to be sure. And a painful one in many ways. Now we are home we will do as we desire._

_So much happens that isn’t recorded in the official versions I write. As I’ve written so many times before, and will no doubt write again, we would be destroyed – both of us – if it was ever discovered what we were doing behind these doors. The law is brutal._

_He has no time for the police, of course. But the thought of gaol frightens even him as it terrifies me. No one will ever find out, this we have sworn. We will take our secrets to the grave.’_

 

As he reads, he imagines he can hear the words being spoken from somewhere behind him, in an accent not so different from that which came out of the body he inhabited. He stops reading, and the words stop too.

Silver rises to his feet and leaves the room, leaves the ghosts in peace and heads back downstairs.

 

In the living room, Sapphire is sitting in the second chair, leaning forward, ankles, knees and hands pressed together. She's watching her companion intensely and for a moment Silver isn't sure whether or not they’re talking. Finally he makes his mind up, no. They’re just sitting.

Steel is still cradling his head in his hands and Silver feels a fine slither of sympathy for him.

“Are you all right?” he asks as quietly as he can. These bodies are so loud but he dare not use telepathy.

Sitting up slowly, Steel looks directly at him. It’s like being regarded by a black hole “Yes, I think so.”

Silver isn't immediately convinced. It’s hard to tell with Steel. He keeps everything secret, private. Doesn’t share. Maybe with Sapphire but definitely not with him.

He waits for Sapphire to look up and asks, “What were you told?”

“About what?”

“About here."

“Just that something has ripped a hole in time and we need to fix it. I assume that’s why you’re here.”

He nods vaguely. “Right.”

“Silver? That is why you’re here, isn’t it?”

“Yes, oh yes.” He pauses. “Would you mind coming with me. For a minute or two? I have something to show you.”

 

She follows Silver up the stairs, into the second bedroom where he shows her the journals and tells her what happened when he tried to pick one up.

He knows she’ll try it too, and as expected there’s instantly another sprinkling of dust on the bare boards on the floor of the room, at the edges of a fraying rug next to the bed.

She asks him, “What do they say?”

“It appears to make up a diary, I think. The one I read seemed to speak of a crime that the writer and another were committing or had committed and were pledging to keep a secret between them.”

Sapphire leans forward to read a page.

 

_‘He’s a fascinating man. Full of insight yet ill equipped to deal with the very society he so loves to reduce to deduction and observance._

_I wonder now if anyone other than myself would stand to live with him, for his habits are unusual and his work brings him in at all hours of the night._

_His playing aside (although with practise I can tell that he might be quite good) I enjoy his company and am satisfied with the turns my life has taken.’_

 

She goes to turn the page, Silver smiles to himself, because it turns to ashes in her fingers. He raises his eyebrows at her bright, broadcast expletive but says nothing.

Moving her hands behind her back, she tilts her head to read another page in another book.

 

_‘I was wrong about him in so many ways, and yet right in a few scant, important details._

_His playing just needs an audience as I found to my pleasure this evening. The terrible aching in my head had not cleared since lunchtime and so when he started to make sounds similar to a cat in significant pain, I was forced to make my way downstairs to request silence._

_The moment I opened the door, his style changed completely. He began a quiet Mozart piece, one which far from scraping my nerves soothed them. I sat and rested while he played to me, lulling me with each new piece of music._

_When I woke, he was sitting across from me sipping from a glass of wine having eaten supper! I’d slept through the whole affair!_

_Of course I apologised, but he would hear nothing of it.’_

 

“Why do they turn to dust?” Silver ponders aloud

“They’re not meant to be here.”

“Do you know that or are you guessing?"

She doesn’t answer directly. “When we touch them we break whatever time bubble is keeping them here.”

“So they belong here in space but not in time?”

She shrugs, and it’s such a human gesture it amuses him. “I’m speculating, that’s all.”

 

“What have you found that’s so interesting?”

They turn in unison to see Steel standing at the top of the stairs, just inside the doorway. He looks drained from the mere act of climbing them, leaning, heavily on the wooden banister.

“Journals. Only they don’t seem to belong. Whenever we touch them, they become dust.”

“Are any of them open? Can you read….” Steel takes two steps forward and crosses the threshold. His words become a scream the moment he’s in the room.

~

**EPISODE TWO**

“What have you found that’s so interesting?”

They turn in unison to see Steel standing at the top of the stairs, just inside the doorway. He looks drained from the mere act of climbing them, leaning, heavily on the wooden banister.

“Journals. Only they don’t seem to belong. Whenever we touch them, they become dust.”

“Are any of them open? Can you read….” Steel takes two steps forward and crosses the threshold. His words become a scream the moment he’s in the room.

 

“Steel!”

Sapphire’s shocked cry barely scratches the wall of sound pressing in on Steel’s mind.

The pain that he felt like fire in the first bedroom are so much worse here.

White-hot shards of agony pierce his every thought until his only escape seems to be to claw at his eyes to release the pressure inside his skull.

He's unaware that he's making a sound.

 

The sounds he’s making are terrible to hear.

Silver reaches for him, catching his wrists and forcing his hands down, away from his face where blood is already pooling in scratches he’s managed to make around his eyes.

Captured, he starts to struggle like a wounded animal against Silver who’s trying to back him out forcibly from the room. He accidentally steps on fragile toes in polished shoes in the first aborted attempt, but the second time he manages to make it out onto the landing. Steel’s suffering doesn’t cease. Sapphire's the only one who can stop whatever’s happening inside Steel’s head.

She follows them out and claps her hands to the sides of his head, concentrating, pushing the inhuman pleas from her thoughts and ripping into his mind, searching for whatever is attacking him.

She sees birds.

It’s just a memory, or a premonition, one he’s fixated on, linked to fear after the attack by the entity that exists in their past or in their future. It’s difficult to tell. There are hundreds of birds now, all pecking at his neural pathways, screeching as they pull at him, tearing neurone from neurone.

Sapphire scatters herself throughout his mind, launching a brutal attack of her own. The only way to save him.

 

On the outside he’s fighting to escape Silver’s clutches, succeeding only in leaving scratches in the soft skin on Silver’s forearms. Silver detaches himself from the physical sensation of pain and watches, frightened for both his companions, as the mental battles goes on. There’s sudden silence but he doesn’t pry, he daren’t.

 

Cold and beautiful, she reaches for the birds, shards of herself so sharp they slide easily through feather and flesh. One by one, they die and vanish. Not once do they turn and fight back, but focus entirely on their unending attack, wearing his defences, tearing at them. At first more appear to replace the dead but she doesn’t tire, stabbing and slicing at the white, screeching mass, fighting for Steel’s life inside the very core of what makes him - not his human mind but his elemental soul.

After an eternity, gaps began to show in their lines. The weakening gives Sapphire the hope for victory that she needs, and with a mental cry she throws everything she is at what remains, depleting their numbers savagely. Suddenly, with no warning, they all vanish.

Silver catches Steel as he collapses.

 

Sapphire retreats from the damage as carefully as she’s able, seeking physical support from the stair rail, heart pounding, head aching. She watches as Silver lowers Steel’s unconscious form to the floor, needing to assess Steel’s condition but unable to do so immediately.

 

Silver ensures that no part of Steel crosses the threshold of the bedroom. He follows him down, hand under his head. There’s blood running from his ears, nose and the corners of his eyes and taking his handkerchief from his pocket, Silver wipes away the red.

Time passing has little meaning for them. To sit and wait for Steel to recover costs them nothing. Silver peers back into the bedroom now and again but sees nothing that might give him a clue about what was launching the attacks. Sapphire warns Silver that she’s going to assess Steel’s situation before she takes a cautious glance into his mind.

“Better?” Silver whispers. And she nods.

“What was it?”

“Fear, I think. Not his. Theirs, but in a language he would understand.”

Her tone worries him. “Theirs?”

“The men I sensed in the living room."

“What did you see?”

She hesitates. “Birds.” It takes a couple of minutes to explain, and in that time Steel rouses, opens his eyes, sticky with blood, and takes a moment to look around.

“Steel?” Sapphire crouches down while Silver gives his best smile.

“Welcome back.”

“Thank you.” Hesitantly, he tries to sit up. Silver gives him a hand, steadies him as he pulls his knees up and leans forward to find his balance, wrapping his arms around his legs and dropping his forehead carefully forwards.

Neither Silver nor Sapphire speak, but Silver keeps his hand resting against the small of his back.

“I have a headache,” Steel tells the space between his chest and his legs.

“Unsurprising,” Sapphire comments. “You need to heal. You should go back. Let Silver and I finish up here.”

Steel raises his head and Sapphire looks into his bloody face. “No.”

“You should.”

“I’ll be all right.”

“It was a vicious attack, if it happens again it could kill you.”

 

Silver listens to the exchange with deepening concern. Steel’s blood is on his hands and although these bodies are mere forms, it brings it home to him that they can be hurt. If they die trapped in flesh, he wasn’t sure what would happen.

Would they cease to exist if the mind died? What would the consequences of their deaths be? Could they be destroyed?

He unconsciously squeezes Steel’s shoulder with his free hand and he looks at him, questioning.

Silver says nothing, pulls a clean handkerchief from his suit pocket and hands it to Steel.

“Here."

Steel takes it, wipes the blood from around his eyes and mouth. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it. The very least I can do.”

He smiles his customary smile, keeping up the act they both expect from him.

In the past it's been Sapphire who paid him the attention. But her mind is on Steel now and his wellbeing. And Silver can hardly blame her.

Steel, however, is still regarding him thoughtfully, as if this time he isn't buying the old, familiar lines.

 

Silver’s acting oddly, but it’s Sapphire who requires his attention right now. Her crazy suggestion that he leave.

“I’m staying. Whatever’s here, I’m just sensitive to it.”

“Sensitive to it?” She sounds incredulous.

“Yes.”

You call this sensitive?

The moment the words touch his brutalised mind the pain in his head magnifies exponentially and he almost completely fails to bite back his indignant shriek.

Kneeling up quickly, Silver puts his arm across Steel’s shoulders, one hand on each shoulder, keeping him upright.

“Stop it!” he yells at Sapphire.

She’s already stopped. She’s made her point.

“I’m sorry,” she murmurs.

He takes several pointless deep breaths before lifting his head, red tears leaking from his eyes.

“Please don’t do that.”

“I am sorry.” He can feel Silver’s hands on him, the faint pressure oddly distracting. “We know the living room’s safe, I’ll stay in there until we know more.”

Sapphire looks as if she's going to argue her point but finally she accepts it.

“All right.”

It's another ten minutes before Steel's able to get to his feet, even with Silver’s assistance. Carefully they make their way down to the first floor, leaving Sapphire upstairs.

 

She stands in the centre of the small room, focusing beyond the present, on the past then the future, searching for whatever attacked Steel. But she can't sense anything.

The structure they’re in exists but the now they’re in somehow doesn’t. Working out the somehow is Steel's domain, and she isn’t sure that he’s going to be able to work in the house.

She realises she has no idea why Silver's been sent. He's an engineer. Maybe with Steel out of commission he’s going to be a help, but there’s no way the authorities could have known that ahead of time.

 

In the living room Steel steps dead, so that Silver walks straight into his back.

“Steel?”

“Look!”

He’s staring at the two empty chairs in front of the fire. All Silver can see are two empty chairs in front of the fire.

 

Steel can see two men sitting there. They belong there in a fashion, but in another, they didn’t. They're dressed in the right style for the period.

One is tall, lanky. He's sitting back in his chair, his legs crossed, foot bouncing. He's smoking an elaborate pipe, the smoke curling up in front of his smiling face.

The second man is shorter. He has a beard and heavy eyebrows, and his smile is sparkling. There's a cigarette between his lips from which he takes a long drag before plucking it away.

They're speaking to one another. Their lips are moving, but Steel can't hear the words. There's no sound, at least none he can hear.

“Silver?”

“What?”

“You don’t see them?”

“Who?” He takes a step forward. “Wait.”

Another step forward.

Silver's hovering behind him, unsure whether to touch, remembering how Steel stopped him from touching Sapphire earlier when she zoned out on them. Silver doesn't quite understand that. Engineers don’t posess many mental skills. They have other talents, generally twice as useful because of their practicality.

Operators fix anomalies in time. Engineers get them in and out.

“Steel…!” Silver whispers harshly, still unsure about disturbing him but wanting nothing less than to watch his companion start bleeding again. “Steel!”

 

Nothing. There's nothing.

Sapphire can't sense anything malevolent or malicious. What she can feel is a deep affection, a warmth, emanating from the very foundations of the house.

She reaches for Steel and can sense him, distracted, focused elsewhere. She withdraws, leaves him be for the time being. He isn’t defenceless. He’s usually the strong one. She knows Silver believes they shut him out on purpose, she knows he thinks it’s Steel who instigates that. But actually it’s she who shields them most. Keeping Steel to herself. If he wants, he can step into Steel’s mind as easy as she can.

When they arrived, she opened herself by degrees until she was completely accessible to whatever was in this place. And nothing touched her. Nothing spoke to her. Whatever attacked Steel has either gone or it's hiding from her.

Why would it hide?

 

Tentatively, Silver brushes Steel’s shoulder with light fingertips.

In front of Steel’s eyes, the men fade from reality. He blinks to bing them back but they've gone. And his headache is back, with a vengeance.

Swaying slightly, falling back for a moment onto Silver’s steadying hand, Steel crosses the room to sit in one of the chairs the two men have just vacated. He hopes they’ve vacated. He wills the throbbing pain behind his eyeballs to stop

“You didn’t see them?”

Silver perches on the edge of the second chair. “No. I saw two empty chairs.”

“Two men dressed in period clothing, sitting where we’re sitting now, talking.” He describes them, pulling details from his photographic memory.

“Are they the same men Sapphire heard talking?”

“I don’t know. I think so. Two men shared these rooms. I think this is the anomaly. They’re the anomaly.”

“They shouldn’t be here?”

“They belong here.”

“But you said they don’t exist.”

“I know.”

“Sapphire said this place doesn’t exist.”

“Partially.” He closes his eyes for a moment, sitting back in the chair.

A moment turns into seconds, into minutes. He shifts, suddenly startled by a touch to the side of his face. Opening his eyes he sees Silver standing over him, watching him carefully.

“What?”

“Just checking. We don’t usually sleep.”

"My mind is healing.”

“Right. Sorry. Do you think you’ll be all right alone for a while?”

His question is met with a wry smile.

 

Sapphire meets him on the stairs. She doesn't say a word, just checks Steel is still sitting in the living room and opens the door to the first bedroom.

This time she does feel something, the ghost of a touch to the back of her neck.

“Steel saw them,” Silver tells her, “sitting in front of the fire.”

“Did they speak to him?”

“No, he couldn’t hear them, only see them.”

“Images,” she explained. “Not real. Just….”

Downstairs, the front door opens and they hear an elderly lady call out, “Morning, Gentlemen!”

~

**EPISODE THREE**

Downstairs, the front door opens and they hear an elderly lady call out, “Morning, Gentlemen!”

With a glance at one another, Silver follows Sapphire out to the landing, making their way cautiously down the first set of stairs. In the hall, the newcomer is removing her coat, hanging in on a stand next to the door.

_Silver?_

_I see her._

Picking up her bags, the portly woman starts up the stairs, looking up, staring straight through Sapphire and Silver before she vanishes in front of their eyes.

“Don’t tell me, she doesn’t exist either.”

“No.”

“Then why can we see her?”

“I don’t know.”

Gracefully, Sapphire descends the stairs to the hall, walking to the front door. She feels nothing out of the ordinary, but when she tries the door, it won’t open.

“Go to the window in the living room and tell me what’s outside.”

“A pavement, road and terrace houses,” he tells her without moving.

“How do you know?”

“Because that’s what I saw when we were first in there. I remember quite clearly.”

“Check again, please?”

He sighs dramatically, she sounds more and more like Steel each time they met. At least she said, ‘please’. But he goes back to the living room, glances at Steel as he pushes aside the net curtains.

At first glance he’s right. Below him is a busy street: two couples walking arm in arm along the pavements, two horse-drawn carriages pass one another in the road. Across the road is a similar row of four storey terrace houses, a mirror image of the row they're in.

Silver groans to himself. A mirror image. Literally. In the window directly opposite him, he can see himself staring out at the street.

He senses someone behind him and turns, surprised to see Steel standing at his shoulder. “Look.”

“I’ve seen it. Nothing’s real out there.”

“So where are we?” But he already knows the answer, they’ve been telling him since the moment they arrived. “This place doesn’t exist. Got it.”

 

 _I’m worried, Steel._ Sapphire includes Silver this time. _I don’t know what’s outside if what we’re seeing isn’t there._

_Can you get out?_

_No. The door won’t open._

_Let me try._

_Steel, wait!_  
  
He's already on the stairs, taking them with his usual bouncing step.

_What is it?_

_There was a woman down there, I think she belongs…. Her mental voice is abruptly cut off._

For a moment her mental link to Steel is thrown wide open. She sees the raw state of his mind, and witnesses the third attack as it's launched upon him.

The sudden agony causes her to break her connection with him in self-preservation. Furious with herself, she screams his name, flings herself down the stairs to find him in the hall, his back against the wall, head dropped forward. His body is shaking like it’s trying to tear itself apart but unlike the last time, he isn’t making a sound. “Silver!” _Silver!_

He doesn’t answer.

 

Still up in the living room, Silver is frozen in place next to the window. At the moment of the attack, Silver clung to the connection that Sapphire broke away from. His spur of the moment rationale had been to help Steel fight off his unseen attackers. But too late he realises that he doesn't stand a chance. He doesn't have the skills of an operator. Basic communication is the limit of his psychic abilities.

When the fire sweeps through his mind, he knows he's made a terrible mistake. He doesn't feel Sapphire's hands at the sides of his head.

 

Standing behind him she closes her eyes and moves into the turmoil of his mind.

His link to Steel is wide open and burning. She gathers her own defences around her before she follows it, using Silver to transverse to where Steel is dying.

This time, she doesn't try to fight. She can sense Steel’s mental shields shattering one by one as his enemy attempts to tear him apart from the inside out. For now, he's succeeding in keeping the attack from the core of his self as he searches desperately for coherence, for understanding. But he’s failing, he’s weakening.

Whatever is here, in this place, it knows they’re here to destroy it and they’re fighting back. And winning.

 

Nothing so subtle as an image this time, no birds, no fear even.

 _Who are you?_ She speaks directly to the presence in Steel's mind, the part that isn't him.

She hears the echo of his silent, mental scream as her voice adds to the pain but it can't be helped.

_What do you want?_

Another scream, this time overwhelmed by a whisper.

_we want to live_

_Why are you doing this?_

As she spoke she hears her name, Steel's plea for her to stop. But she can't.

_this one means to kill us_

_What are you?_

_We belong_

_Where?_

_here_

Sapphire reaches for her partner. He knows as well as she does. Sacrifices have to be made.

 

The thought, the idea, starts in her mind but it passes back to Silver through Steel. He sees it, understands it, and screams.

_NO!_

 

Using a strength he wasn’t aware he possessed, Silver breaks the link with Steel, at the same time dragging Sapphire out of Steel’s mind, throwing her out of his.

She staggers back, reeling from the unexpected force of his actions, putting out her hand against the wall next to Steel’s head to steady herself as he slides down the wall. Silver takes the stairs two at a time until they’re face to face. She’s furious, eyes cold, hard. Then, when he thought she might actually strike him, her face softens and she smiles at him as if something’s just become apparent.

“You were going to kill him!”

"He agreed, Silver.” Apparently that’s supposed to placate him.

“They were killing him!” He scoots around her, crouches down on the other side of the hall. ‘Steel?'

‘I agreed, Silver.’ Obviously the attack is over for the time being.

"We're all dispensable."

"You want to die?"

"Of course not. But if I must, I must. There would be another. I'd be replaced."

“But you wouldn’t be you."

“I don’t matter."

Unable to believe what he’s hearing, Silver bounces to his feet. He needs to be away from them.

 

"Why did he stop you?"

Sapphire sits down next to Steel, fingers steepled, wrists resting on her knees.

"He cares about you."

“Why?"

“Only he can tell you that."

"Sapphire...."

"It's not important." She studies his face for a moment; the blood shot eyes, the strain is showing around his eyes and mouth. "You won't survive another attack."

"If I can get them back into my mind, you can destroy them."

"I'd have to destroy you too."

"I know. But if it's the only way, you have to do it."

"Silver's not the only one who doesn't want you to die."

A smile ghosts across his lips. "Thank you."

 

_‘A remarkable man. He twines the threads of truth with the skills of a seamstress. No crime, however mysterious, remains a mystery for long. And while some may accuse him of removing all magic from life, I know the reality to be quite different._

_Living with him is an experience I could not have hoped for in my wildest fantasies. Knowing him makes my life all the richer. And I hope I contribute to his existence in some small way._

_I wish to be more than just his Boswell.’_

 

_'Today must be recorded here, for nowhere else in history will it be celebrated. My friend, the man who had come to rule my every waking hour and haunt me in my dreams, has become so much more. Even here, I dare not detail what we have done. Save to say we love one another, as a man may love a woman who shares the desires of his heart.'_

Silver stretches one tingling leg out in front of him, muttering under his breath about the fragility of 'these damnable human forms'.

Leaning forward, twisting his neck, he finds another open page.

_  
‘To be angry or sad, relieved, baffled? I do not know what to feel. Anger would have been healthy I think. He left me believing him dead to me for three years. So much pain, so much bitterness._

_And now a part of me wants to protect itself and be rid of him, satisfied to know simply that he lives._

_But in my heart I know that will never be enough. It never was enough. I need now what I needed then._

_Had he known, would he have left me?_

_The memories of Reichenbach still haunt me.’_

 

He finds them where he left them, talking quietly, and for a moment or two he watches them.

Of all the elements, they are the two the others are jealous of. They have been assigned to Earth because there's life. They're the safe ones, if a little unconventional at times. They have each other when the rest of them worked – for the most part – alone.

 

In the hall below, Sapphire is wiping the dried blood from Steel’s face with Silver's handkerchief. Silver feels a jagged pain in his chest.

Is this jealousy?

Would Steel ever consent to him?

Silver sighs softly. He seriously doubts it.

“I know what’s happening here,” he declares. “I know who they are. And I know why they’re here.”

~

**EPISODE FOUR**

In the hall below, Sapphire is wiping the dried blood from Steel’s face with Silver's handkerchief. Silver feels a jagged pain in his chest.

Is this jealousy?

Would Steel ever consent to him?

Silver sighs softly. He seriously doubts it.

“I know what’s happening here,” he declares. “I know who they are. And I know why they’re here.”

 

Carefully resting his head back against the wall behind him, Steel looks up. “Well?”

“Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson.”

The way Silver speaks, it's as if the names are supposed to mean something. Steel waits for Sapphire as she retrieves the data.

“Sherlock Holmes – a fictional detective created in the late 1800s by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Dr John Watson, also a work of fiction by the same author. Conan Doyle wrote Sherlock Holmes adventures for a London news sheet called The Strand.”

“Fictional?” Steel shakes his head. “That can’t be, they lived here. I’ve seen them!”

 

Silver starts down the stairs to join them. “Sherlock Holmes was so popular that he became a legend. He lived… in the imaginations of Conan Doyle’s readers. We’re not in the early 1900s, are we Sapphire? The year is 1986.”

“It’s both 1892 and 1986."

“The both of you have been saying this place, these people, don’t exist from the moment we all arrived here. You were right, they don’t exist.”

“But I’ve seen them,” Steel points out.

“Yes. I think we’re in a re-creation. I don’t think Time has broken here. I think reality has.”

“If that’s true, why are we here?”

Steel pushes up to stand. Then stops.

“I was told... I was sent here to die.”

Silver can’t believe what he’s hearing,

“What? No… You must have been mistaken.”

“It’s the only way, Silver.”

“No. You don’t have to do this, we don’t have to do this.” He tries to think it through. “They never lived. You can’t die for something that never lived.”

“Silver….”

“I won’t let you.” It's an arrogant statement, but he doesn’t care. “In the journals upstairs… they’re Dr Watson’s journals and they talk about the two of them being lovers. But they weren’t – not in the books, not in the fiction. In their time, in Conan Doyle’s time, for two men to engage in… well, it was against the laws of the day.”

“So?”

“I don’t know!” He sounds desperate even to his own ears. “But… it’s as if they have lived here. They’ve taken on a life of their own, don’t you see? Somehow… they’re fighting to survive and why shouldn’t they? They haven’t done anyone any harm. There are no real people here. There’s just them and us.”

“We can’t leave it like this.”

Silver throws his hands up. “Then let the Reality experts handle it. You two deal with Time.”

“We’re multi-talented.”

“I won’t allow you to commit suicide because they told you to.”

“Silver, it’s not….”

“Of course it is!”

“They won’t let me leave.”

"And I won't let you die."

The silence stretches between them until Sapphire breaks it.

"Then we do this together."

Steel seems at least to give in. "Where?"

"The first bedroom. Sherlock Holmes' bedroom."

"Why there?"

"Because what I felt in there was a strong affection, a warmth. Maybe... love."

“Fine.” It's still hesitant. Silver waits for them to join them. He isn’t letting them out of his sight.

 

When they reach the first bedroom, Silver stands just inside the door. He rubs his palms together. Creating.

"The instant I go in there it's going to attack again," Steel reminds them with absolute certainty.

"Yes," Sapphire agrees, "but this time we'll be ready for it."

Silver opened his hands and shows them the faint blue glow sitting in his left palm.

"All you have to do is send them back through the tear," he states. "Then all I have to do is close it."

"Right."

Looking up, he sees the fear in Steel’s eyes. There’s nothing he can do about it on this side. "Ready?"

 

Silver steps back, and Steel puts one foot across the threshold of the room. The pressure in his skull is sudden and excruciating, like a vice around his skull. Every breath is fire in his lungs. Every thought is a razor edge slicing through his mind.

So he stops breathing.

He stops thinking.

He stops struggling.

And somewhere inside him he makes the decision to trust Silver and Sapphire to bring him back. To save his life.

At the same time he accepts the ghosts of Holmes and Watson into his mind, he opens himself to Silver and Sapphire.

He lets Holmes and Watson flow through his head, lets them see those things he's seen, share the experiences he's had.

He keeps them rapt with recollections of joy and pain.

And carefully, without them noticing, he starts to inch them towards the rip in reality they've slipped through.

 

Sapphire watches all of this.

She watches Silver as he waits by the hole in the fabric of reality. The light - the seal he’s made - is held with infinite care in his hands.

She watches Steel bait the lost souls who never existed with the truth of his own existence.

And as they near the place in his mind that he's made the doorway to another dimension, she smiles to herself with pride.

 

Then it all darkens.

 

_They know!_

She by-passes Steel, sends the words straight into Silver's head.

_It's too late - they're too close._

They were.

Steel has already guided them to the tear. The pull of it is too great. They fight him, shards of rage tearing blindly into Steel's mind in a frenzied attack he can't hope to protect himself from.

Sapphire and Silver surge forward.

They focus on her, lashing out, trying to ride the mental connection between them into her mind.

She breaks away just as the furious presence of Holmes hurls itself at her. The force of it makes her lose her physically balance and she staggers back, out of the room.

_Get them through it!_

Silver presses the command directly into Steel's mind and reels from the pain the communication causes him. He senses Steel reasserting himself against the alien presences of Holmes and Watson, striking out at them through the red haze in his mind, driving them back towards the opening. Silver reaches for them, manages to get a hold of Watson and drags him towards the tear, casting him through it with all the mental strength he can muster.

Steel is weakening quickly. Silver searches for Holmes - for the presence made real by the power of imagination and belief, and as he does, he sees bright core of the element pulse once.

_Steel!_

This time the backlash hits him hard. He imagines he hears a faint call of 'stop' pressed into his mind but he can't organise his thoughts well enough to confirm it. He makes a grab for Holmes but he slips through, smothering Steel like spilt ink. He starts to feels panic overwhelm him, but he’s pulled back from the edge by Sapphire’s mind-voice.

_Silver. Get him out. End this._

_I’m trying!_

_Try harder. Or Steel dies._

Focusing his entire self, he stretches, gets a hold of Holmes, and flings the black presence with all his strength at the hole in Steel's mind.

_Seal it! Now!_

He doesn't have to be told twice. Drawing the light from his hands into himself through his palm, he moves it quickly to his mind and throws it over the rip in the fabric of reality.

Steel collapses and Silver follows him down, panting hard for breath he doesn’t need. Too tired to resist, he rests his forehead against Steel's and curls his hand around the back of his neck.

"It's over," he tells himself as much as anyone else. "It's over."

 

Steel comes around slowly.

His head feels as if his skull has been smashed into tiny pieces. His mouth tastes coppery. Of blood.

There's something warm on the back of his neck.

Gingerly, he opens his eyes.

He's propped up between the wall and the end of the bed. Next to him, Silver is sitting close, one hand wrapped around the back of his neck.

“Steel."

Steel moves only his eyes to see Sapphire crouch down in front of him. He smiles, hoping it isn't as gruesome a sight as he suspects it is.

"I'm still here."

"Silver refused to let you go."

"Thank you."

“Thank him."

She touches his face briefly before stepping back.

“It’s safe now. I’ll watch over the both of you until you're ready to leave."

“Where are we?"

"A museum, nothing more."

He nods and closes his eyes, feeling Sapphire's lips against him for just a moment before she moves away.

Then he searches blindly until he finds Silver's left hand and holds it. Just for now. Silver saved his life. He’s never going to hear the end of it. But that’s fine with him.


End file.
